F43: Failure of Success Criterion 1.3.1 due to using structural markup in a way that does
not represent relationships in the content

Applicability

Description

The objective of this technique is to describe a failure that occurs when
structural markup is used to achieve a presentational effect, but indicates
relationships that do not exist in the content. This is disorienting to
users who are depending on those relationships to navigate the content or to
understand the relationship of one piece of the content to another. Note
that the use of HTML tables for layout is not an example of this failure as
long as the layout table does not include improper structural markup such as
<th> or <caption>
elements.

Examples

Failure Example 1: A heading used only for visual effect

In this example, a heading element is used to display an address in a
large, bold font. The address does not identify a new section of the
document, however, so it should not be marked as a heading.

Failure Example 2: Using heading elements for presentational effect

In this example, heading markup is used in two different ways: to
convey document structure and to create visual effects. The
h1 and h2 elements are used appropriately
to mark the beginning of the document as a whole and the beginning
of the abstract. However, the h3 and h4
elements between the title and the abstract are used only for visual
effect — to control the fonts used to display the authors' names and
the date.

<h1>Study on the Use of Heading Elements in Web Pages</h1>
<h3>Joe Jones and Mary Smith<h3>
<h4>March 14, 2006</h4>
<h2>Abstract</h2>
<p>A study was conducted in early 2006 ...
</p>

The following example uses blockquote for text that is
not a quotation to give it prominence by indenting it when displayed
in graphical browsers.

<p>After extensive study of the company Web site, the task force
identified the following common problem.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The use of markup for presentational effects made Web
pages confusing to screen reader users.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The committee lists particular examples of the problems
introduced by this practice below.</p>

Failure Example 4: Using the fieldset and legend elements to
give a border to text